Jordan Allows Islamic Jihad to Join PLO Meet in Amman

Jordan has agreed to allow an Islamic Jihad delegation to join talks in Amman to discuss the future of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the movement said Thursday.

In December, Jordan denied Islamic Jihad delegates visas to attend a meeting in Amman of the PLO’s "interim leadership" committee, which will handle restructuring of the PLO.

Islamic Jihad official Ahmad al-Mudallal told Ma’an that Jordan appeared to have backtracked from the decision and agreed to allow the movement to join the committee’s next meeting in Amman on Sunday.

Al-Mudallal said the movement’s representative in Lebanon Abu Imad ar-Refaai would attend.

Salim Zanoun, head of the Palestinian National Council, said Thursday that the PLO committee would meet at PNC headquarters in Amman on Sunday.

All factions that signed the reconciliation agreement in May will attend, Zanoun said in a statement.

Officials said in December that the PNC, the legislative body of the PLO, would stage its first elections in 2012.

The reconciliation agreement intended to end four years of division between the Hamas-run Gaza Strip government and the Fatah-dominated authority in the West Bank included reform of the PLO.

Established in 1964, the PLO is the legal representative of Palestinians on the world stage, but has come under increasingly criticism for not being representative of the whole Palestinian polity.

(Ma’an News)

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